Conversation, Inconvenient

Summary: Somehow he is pretty sure they shouldn't be talking about this right now. OneShot- Shikamaru, Temari and a ghost in the room.

Warning: Oh yeah, I was so looking forward to writing this! I hope I got it right. Warning for adult themes and implied sexuality. T-rated for a reason.

Set: Story-unrelated.

Disclaimer: Standards apply.

"Yo, Nara."

Shikamaru has both his hands buried in his pockets. He doesn't take them out to greet the person striding towards him along the paved road in front of the gate. He doesn't answer the greeting, either, but nods curtly.

"How nice of you to come and greet me!"

Temari of Hidden Sands is not quite as tall as he is. Her eyes are of a shockingly clear grey and her blond curls stand up in every direction possible. The huge fan on her back is secured by a bright, red sash – it is new, obviously, and he notices because he was the one who gave it to her. She stands close enough to be in his personal space and grins at him cheekily. She makes no attempt to hug him – and he is grateful – but her eyes have their own way of communication. As so many times before in the five years they have been seeing each other, Shikamaru wonders how easy it is to feel something at her sight.

"Naruto cancelled a meeting."

"You are free tonight?"

"Yeah."

"Let's go out for dinner."

"Where?"

"Take me somewhere. Surprise me."

She passes him without touching him but she is close enough he can smell the spicy scent she carries: some perfume, and the scent of the wind passing through the dunes. Shikamaru has been in Hidden Sands often enough to recognize it. Strangely, he doesn't dislike it. As he falls into step next to Temari, his hands still in his pockets, he aches to touch her. They've been apart for longer than these last two months. He should be fine. Maybe it is because she is so close.

Maybe it is because she is Temari.

...

"I knew you had a mind of your own."

The first time Shikamaru asks Temari out he is answered with a sly smile and a challenge.

"I want to have fun."

He takes her to a boxing tournament in which members of the audience can participate. Temari fights three champions and defeats two of them. They watch other fights, eat cold hotdogs and drink a bitter alcoholic concoction. He takes her back to her hotel room and she kisses him, hot and spicy and smelling like sweat and alcohol and adrenaline and wind. Her hotel bed is old and has rusty springs and he is bitten by a dozen mosquitoes that night, all of what he does not really remember. Shikamaru remembers her warm and pliant body, compact and muscular, her strong arms and her hot breath and the way she moaned his name in the hard, hacking dialect of the desert, and how he fell asleep with her legs tangled in his and her heart-beat in his ears.

"You are so much more than everyone suspects," she tells him in the morning, leaning on one elbow and watching him. She is entirely naked and entirely unashamed. Some people would call her homely. Fact is Shikamaru thinks she is perfect: she has curves in all the right places. Temari is pure muscle: there is nothing soft in her except for her breasts. And she is strong. It reverberates in every single one of her movements, in every touch, in every word. She is more dangerous than beautiful and she knows it, using it to her advantage. It is refreshing, her attitude, and Shikamaru cannot deny his attraction.

"How?"

She regards him a while, softly threading a lock of blonde hair around her finger. It is a gesture she only shows when she is seriously considering something that is, at least to her, vitally important.

"You are not bland."

It's the best he ever got to hear, and somehow it makes him happy.

…

"Gaara is planning on building a wing to the main house. He says the living quarters for diplomats are too antiquated. Personally, I agree. Remember the room you stayed in last summer?"

They've had dinner, they've had drinks, and while Shikamaru would soon feel annoyed by endless chatter of the meaningless kind he never considered Temari's choice of conversational topics boring. Rather the opposite.

"It wasn't a place, it was a cupboard."

Temari laughs. Another thing he likes in her: she doesn't giggle but does laugh. Heartily, all-out, and it never takes on the annoying quality all the painted kunoichi dolls he knows so well have learned by heart.

"Hell, yes," she answers and wriggles her brows seductively. "But the sex we had in there was amazing."

It is late, the sun already has sunk below the horizon. In the anonymity of the shadowed Konohan streets, she takes his arm. Her head fits against his shoulder perfectly. Shikamaru feels an odd peace in the place where his heart is. They live in an imperfect world, travelling back and forth between two villages because neither of them can let go of his duty. They are imperfect in many different ways. But together, they are good.

"Come upstairs?" He asks as they reach his apartment block. Temari gives him a look that has him tingling all over.

"Try to stop me, Nara."

Her lips are full and red, and her eyes sparkle. He can barely see her features in the dim light of the apartment complex and the flickering lamp posts on the other side of the street. Her warm hand sneaks up under his vest, her other toying with a strand of his hair. When he kisses her, her mouth opens with a soft sigh.

…

It's not just the sex. Shikamaru could find other women for that.

…

They make it up the stairs in relative propriety, which is just as well. A dark shadow sits on the last flight and stands when they approach. Silvery light falls onto Ino's white-blonde hair. Shikamaru recognizes his best friend before Temari's hands find and hit the light switch.

"Shikamaru – oh, hi Temari."

Taken by surprise, Ino smiles nonetheless as she recognizes the Suna ambassador.

"You're in town again? I didn't know you'd come. Is something wrong?"

The women greet with a short hug.

"Nah," Temari responds, her eyes twinkling. "I requested a routine mission – it's so clearly below my rank nobody even wanted to mention it to me – but I had to come, even if it was only for a short time. Can't imagine why I got this feeling." She grins at Shikamaru, who nods impassively and tries to hide the fact that he wishes Ino was somewhere far, far away right now. "Why are you here?"

"I just wanted to catch up on some things with Shikamaru," Ino says and shrugs. "But it's not important. I'll leave you two to your reunion." Her eyes flicker to Shikamaru. Frowning, he looks back but she has already passed them on the stairs.

"Temari," she calls up again from the flight below. "You'd like to grab a coffee tomorrow? Around noon?"

"Sure!" Temari answers back. "See you, Ino!"

The door of the building falls shut. Shikamaru watches Temari: she is still leaning down the railing, looking down into the corridor Ino disappeared into. The look on her face is absent.

"Hey." Shikamaru is unable to hide his impatience any longer. "Do I have to ask you to come in?" He practically growls.

Temari turns around and kisses him, slowly, deliberately. She only stops when both of them are out of breath.

"Ask me nicely, and then I'll see what I will do."

…

"She must be really lonely," Temari muses.

Her legs are tangled with his, her hair – it is silky and soft, contrarily to the appearance of her wiry braids – tickling his nose. Shikamaru is almost asleep, his eyes drifting shut while his hands still roam her body.

"Hmmm."

Her words haven't really registered. Temari knows him, because she elbows him in the side.

"Ino. I mean Ino. She must be lonely. I bet she is."

"Hm? What?"

The name finally jolts him from his reverie.

"I don't think anyone of you really knows her," Temari continues, her hands drawing figures on the arm he has draped around her absently. "You grew up with her. That's why you don't see it, I guess."

"See what?"

"Hm." It is her turn to stall. "The way she really is, I guess."

"I've known Ino for my whole life." There is nothing he doesn't know about her.

"You're implying she has no secrets, that there is nothing you don't know about her. Don't be arrogant, Shikamaru, even I keep secrets from you."

Now he lifts his upper body, tries to stare her down. She does not flinch.

"Like what?"

"If I told you they wouldn't be secrets anymore, wouldn't they. Same goes for her. If she hasn't told you, you don't know her. And I guess there's a lot she never told you."

"Why shouldn't she?"

He's rattled by the turn of conversation. Shikamaru knows his moral compass isn't exactly poled north when it comes to proper conversation topics, but he is pretty sure they shouldn't be discussing other women while in bed together. Also, he has no idea why Temari, of all, would like to discuss Ino when she never had more than a spare glance for the woman. He tells her.

"That's not entirely true," she answers. "At first, I thought she was an arrogant bitch, yes. But…"

And her but hangs in the air, heavier and darker than November mists.

"I give up." Shikamaru leans backwards, lets his head fall onto his pillow heavily. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I feel sorry for her."

"For Ino? But why, for God's sake?"

Temari moves, her naked skin sliding over his. A few hours ago he would have welcomed the implications of intimacy. Now he's cold.

"I can't really explain. It is how you look at her, all of you. Like she can never rise up to your expectations. Like you know she'll always be a more-or-less lowly kunoichi, doing her ikebana and poisoning prestigious politicians after intercourse because Hidden Leaf demands it. Like she never will be special when all of you are – Naruto being the Hokage, you being his advisor, Sakura the head of the hospital, Hinata and her cousin leaders to the oldest clan of the village, etcetera, etcetera. And, more than anything…"

She hesitates, and this time Shikamaru catches on on it.

"What?"

"What irks me is the way she looks at you."

"She does what?"

"Please, Shikamaru, do you want to tell me you never noticed?"

Seriously upset now he sits up, pushing her hands off his chest. "Ino has been my best friend since childhood! I know her! I'd know if… if…" The thought is so ridiculous he can't even say it out loud, even less think it.

"You both practice an interesting sort of denial," Temari says in her usual bluntness. "Anyway, it doesn't matter because she looks at you like she knows she'll never have you. In a way…"

Her derisive expression suddenly softens.

"In a way, this is really sad."

"You really feel sorry for her."

"I do. You know – she is so much more than you see. You all see."

"She's Ino."

"Shikamaru." Temari pulls his face down and looks at him seriously. Her grey eyes search for something in his. "Despite your intelligence, you can be absolutely clueless. I still haven't decided whether it makes me want to laugh or cry."

Shikamaru wishes he knew whether she has found what she is looking for or not.

"I guess I'm lucky," she muses. "You certainly do see me."

"Temari…"

"Stop it," she says as she touches his lips with her finger to silence him. "You know, life never is fair. I've learned that and you have, too. To be honest, it is absolutely shitty. But it's not my job to set all the wrong things right. And I am only human, so I don't feel ashamed that I am a tiny little bit relieved at the way it turned out."

"What," Shikamaru asks slowly, for the umpteenth time this night. "Are you talking about?"

Temari grins up at him, cat-like, her white teeth flashing in the dim light of his small bedroom. Then, she moves her hips deliberately. Shikamaru freezes.

"You know," she says carelessly. "There are other topics of conversation I'd like to go over with you. I wonder…"

He silences her quickly. Temari chuckles into his mouth.

"Gotcha," she whispers.

For the first time, Shikamaru has a cold feeling in his chest as he continues to kiss her. His body responds, but his mind is blank. Dark, empty. This has never happened before.

…

"Don't you see me?" A voice whispers in his mind. When Shikamaru wakes up, he has no recollection of it.

A/N: In my defense, I love Shikamaru/Ino. The reason behind this fic is the following: I think sometimes the people closest to you don't see everything you are. They know you best and guess the rest correctly. But sometimes it takes outsiders to see hidden things. I thought Temari was a good choice to analyze Ino, and if she was with Shikamaru she'd have motivation for doing so… And there we go.